I have been here since January. I was hired for an open ended role at an established but new company. In Jan, the company had a clear path and goal and I accepted the initial chaos of the daily shuffle because I had believed it would settle.
It did, but kind of the wrong way. We went from one owner and 30 employees – no hierarchy, no accountability, no communication. Quite literally 30 people and a room full of paperwork we were told “every one has their own way, just get the paperwork out.” At the time, we were all in the storage room, double and triple sharing computers, while office construction was happening. In April we finally got more computers (some of this was supply chain delays and some of this was owner delays), and a handful of cubicles had been set up, but the entire space is still as of today is 80% unfinished with fire extinguishers on the floor, random piles of metal rods, unfinished drop ceilings, and no working plumbing. The plumbing comes and goes.
We did as best we could, then we were reprimanded for doing it wrong. He only comes in once or twice a week, mostly to change things after we had figured out a flow and best interpreted his lack of direction. Turns out tho that the only reason the paperwork was wrong was because the owner isn't allowed to do that kind of business in that state and was returned to us because of that. He assumes that because he can do business in this state that he can do the same business in every state. So he hung up the licenses or approvals or whatever to be able to conduct business in states, but there's only 5 on the wall. 1 is a county in the state we are located in. 1 is a county in a different state. The other three are actual states, and expired in June 2022. The frames went up last week.
Any way, I won't go into too many details, but now the owner is calling it a start up with large delusions of grandeur. He legitimately aspires to be Bezos. We are now down to 12 staff. And there isn't enough “work” to keep everyone busy. Every job function has changed so many times no one knows what they should be doing. I personally have been “working” on an open ended no direction spreadsheet where I am supposed to find information and then spit it out into programming language for the actual programmers to put into our software/website. I am not a programmer. In fact, no one here is. Our IT is the maintenance person, who doesn't understand Google Suite or One Drive. The background of the people that work here is all over the place from finance to hospitality to retail to insurance and low level management. The people are good and earnest, but the lack of direction is sowing uncertainty about the future. Many people are opening speaking about quitting.
Despite this, the owner announced in July that there would be no raises, no bonuses, and he will not be giving raises at the end of the year, either. But he makes sure to be vague and say “if you stick with it, it will be worth it. the pay off with be amazing.”
Except he tells us with his own words to leave if we don't like change! He tells us that we are automating the process and he isn't going to get rid of our positions, we will just transition to be high level if-there-is-a-problem phone reps. Eventually, at some point, blah blah blah. It's all horseshit. We don't even have phones let alone an actual process.
Anyway, I'm quitting today. It's ridiculous! Don't tell your folks to leave if they have an opinion on the changes, don't tell your folks that they are specifically doing tasks to replace their person, while also telling them that they are a family you truly care about! It's manipulative and damaging and I'm only riding out the pay period. I am so done!! I had been loosely applying to other jobs this entire time, and I had a handful of promising interviews. I ended up securing a position at better pay, actual benefits, generous PTO, great staff
We all get paid 15$ an hour, no benefits, no PTO. Our office building is perpetually unfinished and likely an OHSA violation or two (thought I'm not sure what here actually counts for that).
I am so done!! I had been loosely applying to other jobs this entire time, and I had a handful of promising interviews. But I ended up securing a position in a completely new industry to me at better pay, actual benefits, generous PTO, great staff (I was able to meet the entire team I will be joining), and half the commute.